


[fic] pour a little salt, we were never here

by youcallitwinter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 22:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcallitwinter/pseuds/youcallitwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens isn't particularly epic, or even tragic. What happens is stupid; they all just grow up. That's it, that's the whole story.</p><p>[post DH] [hermione; harry/hermione, ron/hermione, harry/ginny] [oneshot]</p>
            </blockquote>





	[fic] pour a little salt, we were never here

**Author's Note:**

> delusional 4 lyf.

The files just pile on and on, and she starts getting migraines earlier each day. Nobody said saving the world, one signature at a time, would be this hard.  
  
He calls; she picks up on the fifth ring.  
  
“Run away with me?”  
  
His voice is teasing, a lilt to it, that she hasn’t heard in much too long, and it makes her day.  
  
“Anytime,” she says. Gives him a two-finger salute that he can’t see.  
  
He laughs.  
  
Her head aches a little less afterwards.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
That’s when it gets strange.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
She tries to mix it up, because he doesn’t.  
  
_Just give me time to make my damsel hair._  
  
_After I've finished screaming at the Department, alright? Wouldn't do if there was someone left here who didn't hate me._  
  
_Book a corner of the world, Harry, I’m there on my white steed._  
  
“Run away with me?” He’ll say yet again, voice softer each time. His consonants, harder.  
  
And she- she’s mostly running out of things to say.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
What happens isn't poetic. What happens isn't particularly epic or even tragic. What happens is stupid; they all just grow up. That's it, that's the whole story.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
"Haven't spoken to Harry in ages," Ron tells her over the evening drinks. They make a point to meet at least twice a week. This is a healthy relationship, the kind where they make time out for each other and talk, and the spaces between their fingers aren't filled by ghosts, and they will not name their children after the dead. "Bloody hell, you wouldn't even know he's in the same Department."  
  
She nods, takes a dainty sip. There are things she learned about being a girl, a proper girl that her aunt told her about all those years ago when she broke her favorite vase, even in middle of endless war and bloodshed and screaming. God, the  _screaming_.  
  
"You-" Ron is avoiding looking at her, she notes distantly; he's not very good at hiding his feelings. It's one of the reasons she's always loved him, has always known he's always loved her. "Does he talk to you?"  
  
She thinks about that for a moment, "no." He doesn't talk  _to_  her. He just talks, and sometimes, she's just there, listening in.  
  
Ron nods, much too quickly. "We need trio time."  
  
They haven't been that in very long, she wants to remind him. She takes another sip, instead, and lets her thumb rub patterns against the frost lining the glass. It makes her nerve endings go numb, but at least the swirls are symmetrical.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
She will find a ring at the bottom of her glass that night, and her heart will break, and she will have been in love. Maybe in that order.  
  
She doesn't nearly swallow it, she doesn't nearly choke on it, she sees it just before that, just before she can choke on the metal, and the white noise in her head quiets down some. She's missed this. Missed the quiet.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
"Ron asked me to marry him." She cuts him off, mid-way.  
  
He's silent for a minute, "congratulations". If he's unhappy about this in any way, she can't tell. Maybe she forgot the language he's written in. She used to know it well, once, she remembers. Maybe she's out of practice with the letters, the symbols of him, the fancy Auror calligraphy at odds with the bitter childish scrawl she'd painstakingly learnt by heart, because there are more important things, like bravery, and friendship.  
  
"You don't even know what I said."  
  
He laughs, or something, "you said 'yes', Hermione."  
  
Of course she did.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
"Last chance," he says. His words are slurred, just a slight edge to his consonants this time. They're softer, somehow. He doesn't drink much.  
  
She thinks maybe if she said yes, maybe if she just said  _yes_ , he'd stop asking it, because god knows, he's just pushing to see how far he can go, before she snaps, and he didn't even choose her,  _ever_ , none of the times he could have, and how is this fair?  
  
"No," she says, she doesn't want to find out. "No."  _Fuck you._  "No."  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
"This doesn't mean this is over," she says fiercely, bending down to bow, before slipping her hand through his, and putting an arm across his shoulder. They're out of sync with the beat, she'll realize later. But the dance with the best man isn't customary, so maybe people aren't looking. "You, me, Ron,  _together._ We will never be over."  
  
She wants to believe that, she wants to believe it  _so much_. She just wants to believe. In magic. Love. Friendship. Heroes. Anything.  _Anything_.  
  
He pulls her closer, their hips aligning. For a second she can feel the rhythm, just for a second, she's in sync with him, before she pulls back, startled.  
  
He looks at her through his glasses; they're square now, they narrow his gaze, stop the wide-eyed wonder she remembers, at the frame, and occasionally, she wants to break them under her foot. Occasionally, she wants to scream too.  
  
His gaze is inscrutable, and she finds she has to drop her own to the floor, "we already are."  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
What this ends isn't anything- nothing real- because there was never anything there. What it ends is a  _possibility_. A cabin in the woods and staying frozen forever.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
Ginny's ring is beautiful, it takes her breath away for a full three seconds.  
  
"The ring is gorgeous," she says.  
  
"Congratulations," she says.  
  
"I hope you'll be very happy together," she says.  
  
Harry grins, and it's bright and full of life and a before-the-war look that almost makes her ache. She divides her Gregorian Calendar on those denominations.  
  
She is not being fair, and she's not a good person, but she drinks too much anyway, and the jealousy going down is a slow burn.  
  
But eventually she smiles back, and she thinks it's real enough to almost be real.  
  
He loses the brightness through the long-drawn evening, and when she looks at him next, he's lost in thought across the room, mid-movement, like he just... forgot to move. In this war there were no winners, she knows, just the dead and the lost, just wounds festering beneath the surface.  
  
Harry turns his head, and looks at her, unfocused, then appears to recognize her, and mock-smiles, raising his glass in a silent toast.  
  
This is the surface.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
This is how she loves Harry Potter: as every other girl in the world, with the starry-eyed longing for a boy in the history books.  
  
This is how she loves Harry: as Hermione.  
  
This isn't how she loves Harry: as a woman.  
  
~~This is how she could have loved Harry~~  
  
This _isn't_ how she loves Harry: as a woman.  
  
Anyway, everyone knows, she's the books and cleverness. The unimportant things. There are more important things.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
_Run away with me._  
  
His voice is hard, inflexible, and it's everything she'd been terrified of. There is no teasing lilt, no laughter. He's not even pretending anymore.  
  
"I can't," she says, free hand unconsciously coming down to cup her swollen belly. "You know I can't."  
  
"That's not the same as you don't want to," he points out.  
  
She's tired, all of a sudden, sometimes, he drains her out. "Harry-"  
  
The static of his absence is louder than the sounds in her head. The quiet is always relative, she knows. She holds the receiver long after he lets go on the other end, looking at the rain falling outside the window of the cramped Ministry office, fogging up the glass. It's cold outside.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
~~He answers on the third ring.~~  
  
~~"Run away with me," she says.~~  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
She stamps another file.  
  
  
  
-


End file.
